


I Forget Why I Made You Scream

by WytchDr



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Crying, Cuddling, Gratuitous Swearing, Grief, Hurt!Steve, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Procedures, Medical Trauma, Not Canon Compliant, PTSD, Possibly Pre-Slash, Whump, depends on what you want to read it as, descriptions of torture, field medicine, hurt!Clint, hurt!bucky, poor coping mechanisms, references to past torture, you know what I forgot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 09:20:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9715046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WytchDr/pseuds/WytchDr
Summary: The sound of screaming is something that Bucky is intimately familiar with, both his own and others. After decades of forcing of hundreds of screams out of his victims what he has learned is that not all screams mean the same thing. But when he’s the one making Steve scream Bucky isn’t sure how to tell what it means anymore.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentine's Day! Have some whump because that's really the only way to my heart.
> 
> This is finished and I'll post the rest in a few days. Please mind the tags.
> 
> Please be aware that I am not a medical professional (or really any kind of professional to be honest). So if some of this is just utter bullshit, well, now you know why. There's some attempts at a little explanation about some of the medical stuff at the end but, again, I could just be full of it.

Bucky had been on a lot of missions. A lot. Too damn many. And this one felt like shit before they left the briefing room. An in-and-out with no ground or air support, no back-up extraction, foreign soil, hell they didn’t even assign them a medic because the facility was “soft.” Not to mention that all Barnes had to do was field dress a bullet wound really well one time and now everyone thought he was some kind of goddamn medic and that they wouldn’t need anyone else. It was fucking ridiculous. Waders wouldn’t have been enough to keep him clean walking through this level of bullshit, but, whatever, because no one fucking listens to the Winter Soldier anyway. 

Of course he had been one hundred percent right about everything going to hell after the first, oh, ninety seconds or so, but hey, who was counting? Definitely not Bucky.

“I need extraction now! We need medical. Is there anyone in the air?” Bucky shouted into his comm.

“Busy!” Stark shouted back.

“Me too,” Sam said.

Bucky sighed and grabbed at the tank tread. “I lift and you wiggle your ass out. Got it?”

Steve nodded weakly and started sliding as soon as the pressure let up. It took some effort but he slid out from under the tank, dragging his shield with him. Bucky was red in face from exertion and happily dropped the tank.

“You alright?”

Steve wheezed like he used to and nodded. “Couple broken ribs. I’ll be fine.”

“Great. Then let’s go,” Bucky ordered, unwilling to tolerate any of Steve’s characteristic self-sacrificing shit today. 

Steve was glad to comply and followed weakly until Bucky put an arm around his shoulder to help him. Sam and Tony covered their retreat from the air and Clint, Thor, Wanda, and Natasha covered from the ground. 

When everyone was loaded they took off back to SHIELD, or at least to the nearest safe hospital. The mission, if it was still even salvageable, would have to wait, not that Bucky gave two shits. Steve’s broken ribs were giving him too much trouble and Clint was bleeding from some injury to his right leg. The team that had gone out was small enough to begin with that there was no way they could complete it down two men.

“How the fuck do you get out this thing, Rogers? Jeez. It’s like a fucking Chinese finger trap,” Barnes whined as he tried to undo the Cap suit to get a better look at the injuries.

Steve tried to take a deep breath to answer but the sound it made was awful and he came up short, coughing and holding his side.

“Alright, that’s enough. Lie down. I’m cutting it off. SHIELD can fucking bill me for all I care,” Barnes muttered but it was enough to draw a small smile from Steve. 

In all of fifteen seconds Steve lay naked on the medbed. “Here cover yourself, you damn exhibitionist,” Bucky said throwing a small towel to Steve.

Steve complied but held up the tattered remains of his underwear and raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re wearing spandex. What’d you think would happen in an emergency?”

Bucky kept up the one-sided banter while he got Steve hooked up to the EKG, pulse ox, and an oxygen mask. His heart rate was racing and he was desaturating at a disconcerting rate. There were some pretty unpleasant conclusions to be drawn but Barnes was planning to cover all his bases first. 

“I’m gonna check out those ribs. Don’t be a baby about it and hold still, yeah?” It was all the warning Bucky gave him before pressing around the already black line that marked where he had covered himself with the shield as the tank rolled over him.

Rogers did manage to hold still but even so he shouted when Bucky first started. After second he bit it back and panted shallowly, even after Bucky’s hands stopped.

“Hey there, pal. Sorry about that. Let me listen to those lungs,” Barnes soothed rubbing a hand over Steve’s left arm.

The heartbeat was steady, though still too high, but the left lung barely made any noise. That, with the position of the broken ribs, indicated a punctured lung. Bucky rummaged in the unlabeled cabinets in the medbay.

“Fucking putting this shit in my report. I’m gonna buy a goddamn label maker and do this shit myself since apparently it falls to me now. Fury’s useless ass,” Barnes was muttering again, much to Steve’s somewhat pained amusement.

Having found what he was searching for Bucky sat down beside Steve again and put on his best bedside manner, which mostly just consisted of not harassing the patient. “Hey I’m gonna stick you in the chest with this,” he explained holding up a longish needle, “it’s gonna hurt but you should be able to breath better after, alright? Hold still for me.”

Since they couldn’t really catch anything or take infection Bucky didn’t bother with gloves or alcohol wipes. Steve winced and screwed his eyes up at the pinch. However, the telltale hiss of air escaping didn’t come once the catheter was seated and Bucky pressed a cautious hand to Steve’s chest. 

Blood rushed up out of the catheter and Steve began to cough violently. Bucky was already scrambling for more supplies when he noticed that Steve had blood in his mouth from the coughing.

“Fuck. Thor, Stark, Wanda- get over here. You’re gonna help me. Sam give me an ETA to medical.” Barnes started laying out supplies on the medbed next to Steve, which Steve pointedly did not look at, and got to work on an IV. 

“We’ve got another 45 before we clear airspace and another 20 to a secure med facility,” Sam relayed from the cockpit.

“We’re gonna need you to give it all you got Sam,” he called in response before turning back to Steve. “Hey, Stevie. Things are gonna get a little sideways for a few minutes. Just stay with me. I need you to do two things for me okay? One, I need you not to fight me. I know it might get to be too much but we’ll help with that alright? Just do your best. And two, I’m gonna need you to breathe, punk. No gritting your teeth and being all stoic. Scream, pant, whatever- you gotta move the air in and out.” 

He turned away from Steve and grabbed the tube hanging from the bag of saline and connected it as he finished his little speech. Once Bucky finished with the tape he patted Steve once on the shoulder and started barking orders while raising up the head of the bed.

“Stark- legs. Thor- arms and chest. No, over there. I gotta work here,” Barnes directed, moving Thor into position. “Wanda use your whatever, find the broken ribs, and pull them into a reasonable position, pretty much just out of his lung, I don’t want to have to cut him for that too.”

Wanda looked a little surprised which was too long a pause for Barnes. “Today would be nice,” he ordered.

She nodded and immediately raised her hands and, for once, closed her eyes in concentration. Bucky could see Steve’s skin ripple as she felt out the damage with her powers and he helped hold Steve steady as she got to work. Steve was panting shallowly and his pulse ox dropped another couple points.

“That panting isn’t cutting it, Steve. Real breaths. Deep. Come on, punk. Just for me,” Bucky soothed just like he used to before the war.

Steve nodded stiffly and tried. Bucky could see it on his face how hard he was trying. Trying not to fight. Trying to force his lungs to take in air. Just trying. And god if that wasn’t heartbreaking. It was like watching Steve cough himself into a broken rib fighting pneumonia again. Bucky might have missed some things about the good old days but damned if that was ever something he had longed for.

Steve screamed as the ribs made a truly awful noise, grinding back into place, and Bucky took that as his cue to stop feeling for a while. The advantage of years being beaten into submission by Hydra meant that Bucky could compartmentalize like a correctly filled ice cube tray. That had gotten a laugh out of Sam the first time he told him for two reasons. One was obvious- there was never any shortage of ice jokes to be had either for himself or for Rogers. Two, because Sam knew exactly why the word “correctly” had been spat with such venom. Barnes was always bitching about the ice trays and “Can’t you at least try to put in the right amount of water so that they don’t all freeze into one weird thing? Jesus Wilson. We didn’t even have ice cube trays growing up and even I get it right.” 

Ignoring the pained whimpers coming from Steve’s now very bloody mouth, the screaming hadn’t exactly worked in his favor and there’d been a fair amount more blood coughed up, Bucky mechanically released his grip and sat back. “Good job Wanda. Go have a seat.”

She nodded silently and sat up towards the cockpit, as far as she could get from Steve’s screams and Clint’s grunts of pain as Natasha tried to stem the bleeding in his leg.

“Lots of pain now, Stevie. Brace yourself,” he intoned. It was more as a warning for Stark and Thor than for Steve who would just have to tough it out regardless. The empty tone and flat effect was jarring to Stark who remembered how hollow the Winter Soldier had once been. 

At first Steve wasn’t sure exactly what Bucky meant. There was some pressure and a slight stinging but it suddenly erupted into agonizing pain as Bucky jammed a pair of hemostats into the incision. The pain intensified, and with it Steve’s wet sounding cries, and Steve arched off the medbed as Bucky none too gently pushed a finger in before retracting the hemostats. When the chest tube went in Stark lamented the damage to the Ironman suit from their brief fire fight. He’d shucked it as soon as they got on the Quinjet as most of it was trashed. Without it he might as well have not been there for all the good he did. The lion’s share of the work went to Thor who had to struggle to keep Steve relatively steady. 

With the tube in place and Bucky’s finger out of the way blood trickled out of the tube. Thankfully Stark’s quick mind found a bedpan to catch it in before everyone was wearing Steve’s blood anymore than they already were. A few quick stitches and some tape to hold it in place and Barnes, with a look of resignation and ire, took the tube in his mouth and sucked. He spat a mouthful of blood into the bedpan and repeated a couple of times before clamping it off with the hemostats. Rather than leave them to dangle Bucky just taped them to Steve’s chest. The weight and dangling of the hemostats threatened to dislodge the chest tube and no one was in any hurry to have to go through the hell of putting it back. 

Stark and Thor eased off Rogers’ body at Barnes’ signal, still close though, and watched as Bucky fiddled with the oxygen saturation on Steve's mask, turning it up to 100%. Blood still coated Barnes’ lips as he listened again to Steve’s lungs. Steve’s heart rate was dropping back down but unfortunately so was his pulse ox, even with the oxygen. 

“Shouldn’t you let that drain all the way?” Stark asked. “I mean fluid around your lungs is bad. Heart stuff. I don’t know. It just all seems very familiar to me.”

“I’m sure it does,” Bucky snorted, the sound devoid of empathy. “Thing is, if I left it to run dry it’ll start sucking air in which isn’t any better.”

“Good point, Manny,” Stark conceded.

Bucky sided eyed Stark for all of half a second before going back to monitoring Steve.

“What?” Stark asked, undeterred by being ignored. “You know, short for Manchurian Candidate. I can’t always make that fit conveniently into a sentence so I’m trying out new nicknames. I’m sensing that ‘Manny’ isn’t cutting it for you. Maybe we could just go with another ice reference. How about ‘Freezerburn’?”

Bucky probably would have been secretly amused by the banter if he hadn’t compartmentalized giving any fucks about Tony Stark out of the situation. Instead, he stared with intent at the pulse ox numbers. It had been in the 70s for a couple minutes now and was headed for the 60s pretty soon if shit didn’t change direction. To add to that Steve wasn’t able to speak without coughing and even if he could he was getting pretty out of it. Really the solution was glaringly obvious. He just didn’t want to put Steve through conscious intubation and ventilation if he could avoid it, not to mention that sedation might have its own advantages. Barnes fleetingly realized that Steve was the one thing he never could truly compartmentalize, because if he could there would be no hesitation for Steve’s comfort, but he did his best to ignore that train of thought. 

Steve’s head shifted to watch as Bucky got up and he reached for Barnes’ hand. 

“Hey punk. I’m just grabbing something for ya. I’m not leaving. You’re alright,” Bucky soothed. Steve nodded weakly and let go.

Bucky motioned for Stark to move a little away from Steve. “Do we have any sedatives? It needs to be something pretty strong to get him down and I couldn’t even find lido over there,” Bucky whispered.

Stark thought for a moment and, for all his tactlessness, replied just as quietly. “Yeah, we’ve got some night-night darts that we used to use on Banner. They weren’t the most effective since you had to dart him before he hulked out but that should be enough…” Stark wandered to a few cabinets and began picking through them before he even finished his sentence. 

“Found them!” he called not a moment later. 

Bucky nodded and finished collecting what he needed. “Great. Bring it here,” he motioned and turned to meet Stark halfway. “Here, nurse. Hold this for me,” Bucky ordered and traded his supplies for a dart from Stark.

Tony nodded and hung out at the foot of the medbed waiting next to Thor who had taken a silent post there with his arms crossed.

“Hey Stevie,” he said sitting down. “I’m gonna knock you out for a while alright? Let you rest. No worries though kid, I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Bucky held Steve’s hand in his and Steve nodded. Aching to get it over with quickly, Bucky jammed the dart into Steve’s thigh and the hand he was holding went limp in seconds. 

“Alright, bring it here,” he told Stark.

Bucky wasted no time in intubating Steve and hooking it up to the vent in the medbay. He set the vent to CPAP mode and increased oxygen saturation to twice that of normal air. Once Bucky was sure the vent was secure he took a moment to breathe and watch the vitals get better.

Of course the moment of peace was lost when Natasha called to Barnes, “Hey doc. If your other patient is stable we could really use a hand.”

Barnes put Stark in charge of monitoring Steve and then he trudged over to Clint. “The hell did you do to yourself?”

“Umm, I got tangled in razor wire?” Clint asked like it wasn’t something he already knew damn good and well.

“Smooth. Alright, pants off,” Bucky ordered and went to grab more supplies, including gloves and alcohol this time. He took a moment to suck another mouthful of blood from the chest tube before clamping it again. Then he washed his hands off and rinsed his mouth out before settling back by Clint and Natasha. 

“So where did you learn medicine?” Natasha asked while Barnes checked Clint’s blood pressure.

“Hydra. Eidetic memory remember? They just filled my head with any old thing they thought I could use for them. It was like making a jack of all trades. Never needed more than me for any one thing,” he answered while mentally cataloging the readings.

“Hydra? Medicine?” Natasha asked again, a little incredulous.

“Yeah sure,” he answered settling the stethoscope in his ears. “You’ve been to those first aid seminars and field med sessions at SHIELD, right? It’s literally the same powerpoint but with the SHIELD emblem instead of Hydra’s. You ought get them on plagiarism, lazy fuckers.”

After checking Clint over he shrugged. “Your blood pressure is too low. You’ve probably lost too much blood but you’re still awake and you’re not too cold so fuck it, right? Let’s sew these up.”

“Do I a get a local Dr. Frankenstein?” Clint moaned.

Bucky looked at Clint like he was moron. “What about the last fifteen minutes led you to believe that we have locals available?”

Clint shrugged from his place on the floor and looked up to where Bucky sat by Natasha, who held his foot. “I don’t know. Just thought maybe you didn’t bother ‘cause they wouldn’t work?”

“Nah,” Bucky shook his head. “They don’t do it all the way but they’d at least take the edge off. We just don’t have any. Whoever stocks medical supplies on the Quinjet, I’m gonna punch them in their fucking face. Half this shit is hospital grade and you can’t use it in the damn field because this isn’t a fucking OR and then half the shit you’d need for field medicine isn’t here and how the fuck am I supposed to get anything done like this? I mean I had to suck the goddamn chest tube. What is this? Fucking 1850? Who the hell packs a medbay with a chest tube and no evac kit? I’m gonna make a fucking powerpoint on all the shit wrong with this situation and make Fury and Hill sit through it and take some goddamn notes.”

Bucky continued bitching while he mercilessly poured alcohol across Clint’s many wounds and scrubbed the dirt out of some of them. Natasha held Clint's foot and rubbed half in sympathy and half holding it from pulling away while Bucky worked. Bucky made quick work of the stitches, or rather he would have if Clint hadn’t gotten tangled up in goddamn razor wire and shredded his whole damn leg. Luckily most of it could be fixed with glue and butterflies. 

Much to Clint’s relief he did get some breaks when Barnes went to suction the chest tube again two more times. Bucky was relieved that by they time they landed at medical the internal bleeding had already stopped and there wasn’t anything more to suction. Steve’s lungs were both sounding almost normal. 

Even with the breaks, Clint predictably moaned and whined the whole time, which, while annoying, Barnes knew made it easier to bear. Gritting your teeth and being quiet somehow always made the pain worse. Besides, the bitching provided a decent distraction from watching Steve’s motionless form and listening to the rhythmic hiss of the vent.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where those tags about torture and PTSD come in. Just a warning.
> 
> Also, a couple of folks bookmarked this?! Whaaaa? 
> 
> *ahem* 
> 
> What I meant to say was thank you. I am flattered that you read my writing and find it good enough to bookmark. I hope that this chapter lives up to the standards set by its predecessor.

When Steve woke up he stayed stock still assessing his surroundings. He couldn’t hear anyone else in the room. It looked like any other medical facility he’d ever been stuck in so that didn’t help. When he did move he discovered a host of things he did not like: broken ribs, staples, an IV, wrist restraints, face mask of some kind, and, his personal least favorite, a Foley catheter. 

Had he taken a moment to pause and think for fuck sake he would have come to the conclusion that he probably needed all those things but his mind focused only on the one thing: restraints. So he did what he always did. He broke the puny little wrist cuffs and began disconnecting everything with no finesse whatsoever. Of course, this set off every alarm in the room and seconds later a group of nurses burst into the room and Steve fell, literally stumbling, back into a ready stance as though they were going to attack and as though he had any chance against anyone with his ribs still very much unhealed and twenty-some-odd staples running down the side of his chest. 

“Captain Rogers, please calm down,” a small, mousy woman pleaded.

“Where am I? What year is it?” Rogers demanded.

Bucky bounded into the room with a coffee in hand and pulled up short at the sight. Unbathed, awful bedhead, pale, slightly off balance, looking wild and murderous all at once. It was like an angry kitten, both adorable and piteous. And nothing, _nothing_ , as innocent as a kitten, or Steve Rogers, should ever look that lost and hurt. Bucky’s heart ached but he covered it by snorting at Steve and looking generally amused. 

Steve completely bypassed the snort and latched onto Bucky’s presence. “Buck, what the fuck is going on?”

“Just take it easy punk. Sit back down before you undo all my handy work,” Bucky asked as he shooed Steve to the bed. “It’s Tuesday, just like it was this morning. You slept like five or six hours tops. Of course they might have come out with a new iphone since then but it’s nothing earth shattering.” 

All the fight drained out of Steve with that and he melted onto the hospital bed with a series of moans and winces and Bucky offered him an arm to steady himself. 

“Sorry, Bucky. Sorry,” he murmured in the direction of the one nurse who remained. “Hospitals and me don’t have the best relationship.” What he didn’t say was that waking up confused and alone only reminded him of the ice and that wasn’t something he liked any more than years of asthma and pneumonia.

“It’s alright, dear. You should see some of the others when they’re here. They’re intentionally belligerent. You’re a delight compared,” she laughed. “Unfortunately you were still using some of that stuff that you so unceremoniously ripped out. Some of it has to go back.”

Her look was apologetic and Steve sighed. “Yeah.”

“Don’t worry dear we’ll skip out on the wrist restraints since you’re lucid now,” she offered knowingly as she grabbed a few supplies and reattached the CPAP mask.

Bucky made himself useful and grabbed a towel from the bathroom to wipe up the fluid on the floor dumped from the IV and the piss that the catheter tube had leaked out. 

“Thank god,” Steve groaned, his voice raspy from the screaming and the vent. “Can we, uh, can we skip the Foley too?”

Bucky snorted coffee into his nose, swore, and then kept right on snickering at Steve’s red faced indignation. Steve might be hurting but god he wasn’t dying and Bucky, at least this iteration of Bucky, was enough of a shit that he couldn’t help but snicker at Captain America looking all naive and contrite. The motherfucking hilarity of it all. Or maybe the it was edge of hysteria that tinged the situation. Bucky wasn’t exactly sure in that moment, but it didn’t stop him from laughing.

When Bucky finished wiping up he pitched the towel in the bathroom sink and snagged his well worn chair. 

“Yeah, I think we can. You are up after all,” she agreed. “Though you’ll probably be passing a little blood after ripping that out without deflating the bulb first. I bet that hurt.”

Steve ducked his head and blushed red up to the tips of his ears. “Quite a bit actually.”

Bucky just couldn’t with this level of embarrassment radiating off Steve, even if Steve was pitiable. Laughing was what he needed right now, after all of it, and he caved to the desire, laughing himself to tears before getting enough of a grip on himself to heckle Steve. 

“God you are such a little shit Steve. You’re still writing checks your body can’t cash, even now, even with the serum.” And with that Bucky dissolved back into a fit of laughter while Steve got his IV replaced.

When the nurse was gone and Bucky had gotten his shit together Steve turned to him. “You said you’d be here when I woke up.” 

It was meant to be a joke but Bucky could see where the pain and fear was bleeding through the last of the medication. Steve hadn’t meant to be serious, but he kind of was and it killed Bucky.

“There’s not a coffee maker in the room asshole. Besides a guy’s gotta piss sometimes. Or would you rather I did that while holding your hand,” Bucky countered and Steve turned his Captain America Eyes of Righteousness on Bucky.

“Uh huh. None of that shit. Doesn’t work on me like it did when we were twelve,” Bucky huffed, sipping his coffee. 

In reality, it did exactly the same thing it had always done and Bucky was kicking himself every which way to Sunday for not being there for Steve, especially after everything else. It had to have been painful and terrifying as hell to wake up like that. Bucky knew from experience. But, unlike Steve, Bucky was a good liar so he pretended he wasn’t hurting because he didn’t need Steve knowing what that look did to him and he really didn’t need Steve worrying about him.

“So when do I get to leave?” Steve finally asked.

Bucky shrugged. “Soon I guess. I mean I don’t really know. I just keep this chair warm.”

“And drink all the nurses’ coffee,” Steve guessed.

Bucky smiled and laughed. “Yeah, that too.”

\---------

It was another four fucking days of sitting in that goddamn plastic chair before Steve, and therefore Bucky, went home. Not needing the sleep Bucky had kept himself up with coffee and anger the entire time, perks of the serum or whatever, but when they got home and he got Steve settled he crashed.

Sleep took him nearly immediately and spit him right back out sweating and panting in about fifteen minutes. Even more exhausted than before Bucky tried three more times before giving up and making a pot of coffee. He’d been awake for longer. He’d sleep eventually. 

As it turned out, though, he didn’t sleep, not for very long. Or if he did he woke up sore as hell having tensed his muscles so tight that he had cramps even with the bullshit homebrew crap that passed for serum. Bucky wasn’t alright with the situation by any stretch but he sure as hell wasn’t about to burden Steve with anything right now. Steve needed sleep more than he did Bucky reminded himself. 

\------------

Steve had the wires binding his ribs together taken out ten days after they went in. The doctors argued but Steve just pointed out that getting punched with those in wasn’t gonna work out in his favor and in his defense the bones were already well healed. In the end the doctors relented and now Steve had staples all over again. 

“Hey Captain Frankenchest? You need anything?” Bucky called from the livingroom before he laid on the “sofa of despair” as he now privately referred to it.

“God, shut up,” Steve moaned before answering. “No I’m good Buck. Thanks.”

“Alright, night,” he called as he turned out the lights.

He was so tired now that sleep was always near instant. Straight down to REM. And then straight back up, but hell, it was better than nothing at this point. 

This time when he came up his throat burned and he stalked angrily to the bathroom and turned on the light, cupping water in his hands and drinking from the faucet. When he looked back up Steve was leaning on the doorframe behind him.

“Buck, we gotta talk.”

Bucky nodded and rinsed and spit once more before following Steve to the sofa where he gingerly plopped down next to Steve so as not to jostle him.

“Buck, I know you’re not sleeping. You can’t go on like this.”

Bucky took a few deep breaths and nodded. “How could you tell?”

Steve actually had the temerity to laugh. “Jesus Buck you look like shit. Also, the screaming might have given it away once or twice.”

Bucky sighed. He hadn’t realized that he was calling out but it didn't exactly surprise him. “So you want me to have quieter nightmares then?”

“Yeah, that’s definitely what I meant,” Steve snarked as he rolled his eyes. “No, I want you get some decent sleep. I want to help. What’s going on?”

At any other time Bucky would have gone for a walk and ignored Steve until the problem solved itself but god he was tired and his walls were blown to bits. So fuck it. Why not go for broke?

“Stevie you know I killed people but I’ve never told you how. I mean yeah, I’m a better shot than Clint, and you can tell him I said that, but that’s only the half of it. Not all the ops called for that. Some called for prolonged contact with a target.”

After a sizable pause Steve prodded gently, “Prolonged contact?”

“Yeah,” Bucky breathed, the admission- the confession- leaving him like a punch to the gut, and after a second the rest of it just poured out him like water breaking a dam. “Prolonged contact. Days sometimes. Hydra made sure traitors were suitably punished as a warning to anyone who might try something similar. Steve I tortured people to death. You can’t even imagine the things I did. You can’t… and the screams Steve, the screams were the worst. It’s not like a broken leg. I mean yeah it hurts but with torture it’s the scream where they know that they’re not getting out alive, that they’re gonna suffer until the end, the fear. God Stevie you could smell it. And in the Quinjet... with the chest tube… your screaming god it brought me right back there and now when I close my eyes I see you in their places. I can see myself pulling your tendons out of your wrists with pliers, skinning you feet first all the way to your eyes, the smell as I burn your eyes out with a blowtorch. Did you know that the eyes smell different from the rest? They do. I think it’s something about the vitreous jelly. And anyway, did you know that if you put a rat under a metal bucket on someone’s stomach or back and then you heat the bucket-”

“Bucky stop.”

As though he didn’t hear Steve, Bucky kept right on going, stuck in the images in his own head. “-that eventually the rat will find a way out, you just have to hold the bucket down well enough and they just gnaw right through-”

“BUCKY…” Steve shouted and Bucky flinched falling silent. “You can stop now,” he finished gently. “You can stop.”

Bucky’s shoulders tensed in the sudden quiet but he nodded, grateful for the permission to just _stop_. As the tension bled out Bucky he started to shake.

“Every… everytime I wake up, even everything I eat... that’s all I can taste is your blood in my mouth and I… Jesus Steve I never meant to tell you any of that. I… didn’t want you to know… didn’t want you to know the things I’ve done. God I’m awful and you need to rest and I’m just keeping you up. I-”

“Just shut up, Buck. God, come here,” Steve murmured pulling Bucky against his chest.

“Steve, your staples…”

“Are gone. The wires came out yesterday. The incision was healed this morning so I plucked them out. They were scratchy anyway.”

Bucky stayed stiff and unyielding against Steve and Steve sighed. “Buck, you can touch me back. I’m not gonna break. The bones are all set now anyway.”

“I… can’t. I don’t want to. I… all I see is me cutting you apart and-”

“Do you honestly think that’s what you’ll do to me if you get the chance?”

“I don’t know, but I’m scared it might be.” It was a whispered confession that pained him more than any other had in his life. “Not all the traitors I killed were bad people. Some were doing what they were doing to get out, to save people from Hydra. If I could kill them… Steve what could I do to you?”

Steve sat up and pulled Bucky back from him by the shoulders so he could look him in the eye. “Buck, you didn’t torture me. It was field medicine. It’s always ugly. It always hurts. That’s what we signed up for with this job. I… you remember back in March, in that favela in Brazil outside Barcelos?”

“I’m not forgetting it anytime soon,” he huffed as Steve let him rest back on his chest and Bucky wrapped his arms around Steve this time, burrowing into Steve’s body heat.

“Yeah, well you screamed and fought me so damn hard when Nat dug that drone’s homing beacon out of your shoulder. God you begged me to stop, Bucky. But she kept cutting and I kept holding and when she finally got it out and burned it shut with a knife your voice just shredded. I can still hear it. None of us enjoyed it but you knew why we did it. There was never any confusion as to whether or not it was torture.”

“Yeah, but you haven’t ever tortured someone. Sometimes the lines… they blur. It’s hard to remember where they are sometimes. You don’t have a head full of this shit so it’s easy for you to remember what those screams mean. I can’t remember or I can’t forget or sometimes I just can’t tell and I don’t want to hurt you, not like that Steve.”

“I know. And you’re right, I can’t really understand what that’s like but you won’t hurt me. You won’t. I know you.”

Eventually Bucky nodded against Steve. “Never could do anything you didn’t like when we were kids. God it’s been seventy something years and I still can’t. I _know_ I wouldn’t hurt you but that’s not how it _feels_. And how it feels scares hell out of me.”

Steve nodded, his chin bumping against the top of Bucky’s head. “I can understand that.”

They sat together in silence, just feeling each other breathe, for uncounted minutes.

“Buck?”

“Yeah?”

“I'm getting a bit stiff sitting like this. You think we could…?”

Bucky sat up and nodded, “Yeah go get you some sleep Rogers. Thanks for the pep talk.”

“That's not what I meant. I… come lay down with me. I'm not having the best dreams either. Wouldn't mind the company.”

Bucky slumped and put his head in his hands. He couldn’t decide if he was keeping Steve from decent sleep because Steve was trying to be fucking martyr like that or if Steve really needed the company but had been too stubborn to ask for it all this time. And, if Steve did need it, was it because of what Bucky did to him? He couldn’t tell. That was the easiest part of being the asset. He never had to tell. He only had to do and that was enough. Seventy years of not needing to, or even being able or allowed to read people, meant he was shit at it sometimes. Times like now, when it really counted. 

“You’re not gonna make me go in there and cry alone are you Buck? I’m tired of that.”

Oh and there was the guilt, swift and sharp, and Bucky immediately raised his head only to see Steve’s gentle smile. 

“Oh Jesus. Steve, you little shit. I thought… give a fella a break now and again why doncha?”

Steve huffed a soft laugh. “I’m being serious. Sometimes I just… don’t want to be alone, you know?”

And Bucky did know. No one ever touches the Winter Soldier for comfort, no one other than Steve. Gentleness isn’t something he gets. Hands are for killing, for fixing, for breaking, for holding down, for sewing up- Bucky might heal with them but he’s forgotten what it feels like to be comforted with them, what it feels like to let himself be comforted, what it feels like to comfort someone else.

Bucky can’t say anything, just lets himself be led by the hand to Steve’s California king, and he slides in on the far side. He leaves a healthy space between himself and Steve because, god, there’s no need to make this weird. They’re just sharing a bed, not fucking. They shared bedrolls in the war. They shared beds to keep Steve warm when he was sick and dying back in Brooklyn. But Bucky can’t shake that this is different when Steve sighs like Bucky just doesn’t _get it_ and slides over to close the space between them. Steve puts a hand on Bucky’s arm and then Bucky can’t help but whimper. The feel of someone wanting him- broken, ugly, ragged pieces, and all- is both too much and not enough all at once. What was a hand on his arm is suddenly a full embrace and Bucky remembers, finally, what it feels like to be loved, to just be wanted.

Bucky pulls himself closer against Steve with the weight of knowing that all the years that he had Hydra he could have had this instead. The weight of that loss is so heavy that he cries himself to sleep, his tears dampening Steve’s stupidly tight t-shirt, and he finally, _finally_ , sleeps through the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in summary, I am a terrible person and just wanted to hurt everyone. 
> 
> Feel free to leave your thoughts or concrit. Thanks for reading!!

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: In situations of pulmonary contusion/flail chest (PC/FC) ventilation with positive pressure can lead to tension pneumothorax (air being forced into the chest cavity through the laceration by the positive pressure of the ventilation; this air cannot escape back through the laceration which then builds up, putting pressure on the lungs causing collapse). Generally, if mechanical ventilation is required, you would try to use CPAP. However, the efficacy is based on the availability of local anesthetic (ie intercostal blocks or epidural) which makes it easier for the patient to breathe unassisted since the pain would be a non-issue. Note, however, that Steve is desat’ing quickly and therefore growing weaker, losing lucidity, and struggling hard against the pain to breathe in the absence of anesthetics (not they would likely be effective, what with the serum and all). Given all that, Bucky made the decision to sedate Steve to help with the pain in hopes that he would breathe more deeply while unconscious but in the absence of established effects of the night-night darts he opted to secure Steve’s airway via intubation, rather than take any chances on later compromise, and then set the vent to CPAP mode.
> 
> I hope this clears up the confusion of Bucky’s seemingly abnormal choice. And if any of this still doesn’t make sense let me direct you to my other explanation: handwaving.


End file.
